Growing up with a mother who has a masters degree in Speech Pathology and a father who has a bachelors degree in physics and an MBA from Harvard there was only one assumption when it came to my schooling. It was expected that I was going to go to college and that my grades in high school would be good enough to make that expectation a reality. Because of this expectation, school became something you did because you had to and as long as we were performing at a high level in class, our free time was ours to waste.
Outside of school most of my time was spent hanging out with friends and playing sports. My favorite sport was Freestyle skiing and, during the winter months, I would spend both days every weekend out skiing. I also played soccer, golf, and lacrosse. With all the sports I played I would say that I succeeded in school despite my dedication to sports. In the winter months most of my homework was done during the week or in a mad, and rather sloppy, rush between skiing and finding a friend to hang out with.
As I got older I began working a part time job at an ice cream shop in my hometown which took up most of my time during the non-skiing months and especially during the summer. If I wasn’t outside biking, hiking, or backpacking I was probably working or hanging out with people from class. Often hanging out with people from class took the form of biking, hiking, or backpacking.
Most of my life school was something I did because it was expected of me and it didn’t have much crossover into my extracurricular life. Even in college I would spend most of my free time working for my outdoor guide program in the office, as a guide, or as a team building facilitator. I fell in love with learning Chemistry in college but I never stopped to see myself with a career in science. My love of guiding, and sharing my knowledge and love of the outdoors with people, along with the director of the outdoor program’s insistence that I should consider switching majors, should have been a pretty clear sign that I should go into education.
Outside of school most of my time was spent hanging out with friends and playing sports. My favorite sport was Freestyle skiing and, during the winter months, I would spend both days every weekend out skiing. I also played soccer, golf, and lacrosse. With all the sports I played I would say that I succeeded in school despite my dedication to sports. In the winter months most of my homework was done during the week or in a mad, and rather sloppy, rush between skiing and finding a friend to hang out with.
As I got older I began working a part time job at an ice cream shop in my hometown which took up most of my time during the non-skiing months and especially during the summer. If I wasn’t outside biking, hiking, or backpacking I was probably working or hanging out with people from class. Often hanging out with people from class took the form of biking, hiking, or backpacking.
Most of my life school was something I did because it was expected of me and it didn’t have much crossover into my extracurricular life. Even in college I would spend most of my free time working for my outdoor guide program in the office, as a guide, or as a team building facilitator. I fell in love with learning Chemistry in college but I never stopped to see myself with a career in science. My love of guiding, and sharing my knowledge and love of the outdoors with people, along with the director of the outdoor program’s insistence that I should consider switching majors, should have been a pretty clear sign that I should go into education.